They want to kick us out and trash our home: Anger as plans for Central Drive regeneration formally submitted

Blackpool Council continues on with breaking eggs in the hope of turning Central Drive into an omelette

Hello and welcome to The Blackpool Lead.

We knew that Blackpool Council was set to submit its plans for the regeneration of Central Drive and those plans are now public.

If approved - and the council clearly expects it will be - the blueprint will see 300 properties demolished to be replaced with 230 new homes.

Few argue with the need to provide a boost to what is one of the most impoverished areas in the country - but calls for the area to be improved without displacing people from their homes have so far fallen on deaf ears.

Today we unpack what was in that planning application and look at how people locally are responding.

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Blackpool briefing

🏠 Proposals to use a premises in Blackpool’s North Shore as four self-contained flats have been given consent by planners. The applicants were seeking a Certificate of Lawfulness Existing for a property at 21 Chesterfield Road. Planners at Blackpool Council agreed to grant a Certificate of Lawfulness after investigating the premises. The owners of a property generally require a Lawful Development Certificate to legally regularize the conversion of a property into multiple flats without facing enforcement action, to secure mortgages, and to provide formal assurance to prospective buyers. It requires an application to the local council and if granted, it means that the applicant does not have to apply for planning permission for their plans, which would be potentially more difficult and costly. The owners of this property were able to prove that the premises had been used as four flats for some 20 years.

🩺 A 44 year mum-of-three from Blackpool died in hospital after a number of serious health challenges were made worse by self-neglect and other factors. A review by Blackpool Safeguarding Partnerships also heard that, although there had been no evidence that agencies had failed, a number of lessons would need to be learned. The woman, identified only as ‘Alex’ lived with significant health and mobility challenges linked to morbid obesity. She died in Blackpool Victoria Hospital in 2024 from sepsis, lobar pneumonia, cellulitis and a urinary tract infection, with morbid obesity as a contributing factor. Alex’s death was referred for a Safeguarding Adult Review due to concerns about the living environment and family circumstances.

👷🏻‍♂️ Two in five of Blackpool’s most disadvantaged pupils are not in formal education or training at the start of Year 12, according to new research. It shows that figures for the town are the highest rate in the North West, The report — Class dismissed, commissioned by Teach First and conducted by the Education Policy Institute — reveals the outcome gap that persistently disadvantaged pupils, who are eligible for Free School Meals for at least 80% of their time in school -are facing across England. The research follows the recent publication of the Government’s Young people and work: interim report conducted by Rt Hon Alan Milburn, which found that the UK faces one of the highest rates of NEET youth in Europe, in a ‘national crisis of opportunity’. However, efforts are being made to tackle this and Blackpool South MP Chris Webb welcomed the news last week that the town has been included in a new government-backed AI Native Youth programme to help young people, using digital apprenticeships.

They want to kick us out and trash our home: Anger as plans for Central Drive regeneration formally submitted

Artists impression accompanying the Central Drive planning application

By Luke Beardsworth

Detailed plans setting out the demolition of up to 300 properties to be replaced with 230 homes have now been set out by Blackpool Council.

They are part of what the council describes as a ‘major intervention’ to return the Central Drive area to its heyday but there remain a significant number of local residents who are unhappy with the plans which were previously described as the displacement of a community.

The area being demolished includes homes around Central Drive and roads off it such as Montrose Avenue, Rydal Avenue, Salthouse Avenue, Chadwick Street and Erdington Road.

The council said that its ‘ambition’ is for all the new houses to be social housing, something that would serve to improve the conditions and affordability in an area dominated by private rented housing.

But that remains an ambition for the time being and The Blackpool Lead understands that affordability concerns may result in it being scaled back. We asked a number of questions of Blackpool Council on this point but did not receive a response.

And there has been significant concern raised in the community by homeowners who say that the cost of moving out of one of the most affordable areas in the country is not being covered by the council’s offers of compensation.

This has resulted in a number of meetings and campaign efforts led by Rev Matthew Lockwood, leader of nearby Beacon Church, and later the housing community union Acorn.

Submitted site plans

There is a broad consensus from the consultation process and anyone The Blackpool Lead has spoken with that the area is in need of regeneration. While 10% of the properties are already empty and over 100 people have agreed to sell their property, some residents believe the fact that more than 70% of owners have asked for an offer is a red herring because the offers are not substantial enough to properly compensate people.

The scale of the problems that the existing homes face has also been called into question.

Anna Penfold, 41 of Rydal Avenue, told The Blackpool Lead: “We’ve been trying to make them understand by going to all these meetings but because we turn up as a group, they refuse us the information we need.